I recently saw this meme:
When I read that, everything literally stopped. I could feel the truth in it, but immediately my heart pushed back a “NO”. I decided to go walk my dog and think about it and let the truth I knew was there unfold as it may.
When I thought about my deepest pain, there’s no question it’s when I left my 2 sons for 2 years and drowned myself in tequila. The issue with this deepest pain being my greatest gift and where I found the fight was in the fact that it hurt my sons. How in the “f” could my deepest pain, that hurt my 2 sons, the 2 people I love more than anyone on this planet, become my greatest gift? No. No. No. I must always pay for what I did. It was horrible. It was emotional trauma I INFLICTED ON MY SONS. They did nothing to deserve that.
Once again, my weary heart was wrenched and the pain began crushing my chest.
Yet…
The truth living in “my deepest pain becoming my greatest gift” sat there in my mind.
That’s when the fog started to lift and I saw something clear for the first time.
It doesn’t matter that I came home and have been here for a little more than 11 years. It doesn’t matter how many times I say I am sorry, whether they have or have not forgiven me is out of my control. It is completely up to them.
That… how to digest that. How to accept that. And, why does that hurt to the core of my being?
It’s because I know the love I have for my sons. I know that I’m in their corner for them regardless of what they do or do not do. I know that I have their back, period. But, none of that takes away from their mom leaving them, abandoning them at 14 and 10 years old.
This is the truth I have to accept.
~~~
Immediately the decision in my face to either continue to live in a pseudo “I’m ok mode” which is really living in the pit of guilt for my actions, or to actually do the work I need to do to forgive myself and get out of this miserably comfortable pit I’ve made my nest.
I don’t know how my deepest pain will become my greatest gift. I may feel the truth in it, but I can’t see how and have no idea what it will look like. What I do know is I have to go on this journey starting now.
Finally Authentic 